The Pretty Door, The Beauty in the Tragedy

Cover of TIME magazine, October 11, 2018

the beauty in the tragedy

In 2006, I published my poetry book, Atlantis, poems about the United States possibly being another Atlantis. One of those poems was The Pretty Door (posted below). I couldn't help thinking of that poem when I saw the latest cover of TIME magazine. The cover is meant, I'm sure, as a tribute to the courage and the veracity of Dr. Christine Blasey Ford. I saw all that, and I agreed, yes, she is brave and true, but I also saw something else, something dangerous that perpetrates male entitlement - the beauty in the tragedy. Beauty being beautiful women. Beautiful women as victims. It's an age-old theme of literature and art. How many stories and poems and paintings of beautiful women tossed about by love or war or myth, one breast revealed in the turmoil, whilst standing over her are any manner of monsters and gods. This idea goes way beyond the GOP. They wish they could bottle it and sell it like they have the waters of Michigan. My answer to those who think only old, white Republicans do this - Chappaquiddick. The only difference between the privileged white preppies of the Democratic party is that when they are working, and not partying, they are trying to help, not hurt poor people.

Justice Sexualized

The popular feminist answer right now to all of this injustice is to get women in, to vote for women and somehow that's going to stop male entitlement in the courts. It hasn't so far, as long as women keep wanting to please the powers that be - men. Let me quote Gloria Steinem on this idea, I'm paraphrasing - "Let's get a feminist in the White House; it doesn't necessarily have to be a woman." Let's face it, I just watched three girl suits standing by while one of them blabbed about why she was voting to confirm a criminal. There's a special ring in hell for her, along with Ann Coulter and Sarah Palin and all the women who voted for the Cheeto, another accused rapist.

Three Girl Suits

"Let's get a feminist in the White House; it doesn't necessarily have to be a woman."

- Gloria Steinem

The Pretty Door

This only opens the pretty door

hair eyes nose mouth

this time

God didn’t play a joke

or did He?

Pretty opens 

not the talent door

bend over, clean the bathroom, make the coffee, 

here, take out the trash

not the smart door

bend over, clean the bathroom, make the coffee, here, take out the trash

Pretty opens the rich door

“You are the equal of Kings!”

when she passes

for white bread

in a white world

she’s self-educated

that’s the key

when learning to speak

She mimicked her favorite actresses:

Myrna Loy as Nora Charles

Maureen O’Sullivan as Jane

Meryl Streep as anyone

She practiced grammar and

took an etiquette book from the library

in order to pass

for a short while

angels sing

“She shall have Springtime

wherever she goes.”

“...and, as she passed, 

she took the Spring.”

“Wear a veil to hide your looks - and 

keep it down!”

“Women’s faces have too much power!”

Beautiful women are the last minority

no one will care

if they suffer

except that they look so good doing it

and, when they are murdered,

they make sexy victims on the evening news

every one of them

fears being stopped

by a cop 

on a lonely highway

as much as a black man

they are about as safe as a black man

“He told me to step out of the car… 

he threw me against the car

and frisked me.”

“I rested my hand on the seat next to me.

He took it as an invitation.”

“He was waiting for me…”

“you could sometimes see

her twelfth year in her cheeks or her ninth

sparkling from her eyes;

and even her fifth would flit 

over the curves of her mouth

now and then”

Her face only opens the pretty door

since she was twelve, she couldn’t 

walk down the street 

in peace

lying in a pool of blood

she had a restraining order

don’t sit next to a man unless you want it

“They put us in a trailer, it was so hot in there,

I couldn’t breathe.

I pushed my nose into a crack in the side. 

I thought, this is it.”

“She was sleeping soundly

and upon her eyelashes there lingered tears.”

this still happens in Atlantis

©Patricia Goodwin, 2018

Patricia Goodwin is the author of When Two Women Die, about Marblehead legends and true crime and its sequel, Dreamwater, about the Salem witch trials and the vicious 11-year-old pirate Ned Low. Holy Days is her third novel, about the sexual, psychological seduction of Gloria Wisher and her subsequent transformation. Her newest poetry books are Telling Time By Apples, And Other Poems About Life On The Remnants of Olde Humphrey Farme, illustrated by the author, and Java Love: Poems of a Coffeehouse.

Prey

Here I am posting a chapter from my novel Holy Days because yesterday's testimony of Christine Blasey Ford brought it back to me in full force. What is described in this chapter was not the only experience I had of sexual assault; it is the one very like Dr. Ford's. Mine was not an assailant of privilege. He was a rough sort of person, an older boy, elite in his own way in the neighborhood.  Also, Holy Days acknowledges the Stockholm Syndrome of childhood, not the popular reaction of rage and revenge so prevalent now. The passage about the lion may not appeal to most victims. However, it was very real to me. I was 8 in this photo; the assault happened 4 years later. I looked about the same.


PREY

Before I tell you what happened, I want you to know, Marie and Jakey had done what I did hundreds of times before. The only unusual thing was: it was me who walked across the street to the Likus’ house to look for Ma. 

      What was equally unusual: Rick answered the door instead of one of the girls.

      I was only slightly taken aback. After all, he lived there and, if Ma wasn’t at home, she was probably at Annie’s.

      “Is my mother here?” I asked him, warily.

      “Yeah,” and he stepped back to let me in.

      I stepped into the dim hallway.

      The second I was in the darkened hue of the Likus house, the second I smelled the musky odor of Likuses, the heavy, bodily odor of their chaos and mystery, the second I saw the amused face of Rick’s pal, Frankie Campbell peering at me from the end of the hall, I knew in a flash of absolute terror - Ma wasn’t there!

      I turned to run out, but landed right in Rick’s arms.

      Down the dark tunnel, he carried me and every step was a jolt I emphasized, almost comically, with a cry of “Rick! Rick! Rick!”

      He threw me down on the couch and jumped on top of me.

      I scrambled underneath him.

      “Don’t! Rick! Don’t!”

      Frankie stood in the corner. He was blonde and narrow, smirking nervously.

      “You’re fuckin’ nuts, man,” Frankie told him.

      “Come on!” he said, struggling with me. “You can do it too!”

      He unsnapped my dungarees. The zipper slid open though I grabbed at frantically.

      He unclenched my fingers, threw my hands down and held them over my head.

      He laughed. Neither of us could move.

      “Gloria!” he smiled down at me, his blue eyes sparkling against his dark skin, against the raw, white flesh of his scar like a twisted, agonized bolt of lightning from his damaged mind.

      At that moment, I was terrified of him and I hated him, but I recognized him. He was the Nazi. A small part, a very strong small part of me wanted to throw my arms around him and pull him down on me. I’ve often wondered, though I hardly need to wonder, what I would have done if Frankie hadn’t been there, standing, watching idiotically, altering the chemistry of the room. In my memory, I think of it sometimes as the death embrace of animals, the lioness teething upon the throat of her victim. I know she must love her prey: how much of her hunger and her agony she’s put into pursuing it’s delicious flesh and blood that will feed her and her babies and keep them alive and I know her mate has teased her throat with his teeth in much the same way when he took her and the love embrace and the death embrace are almost identical. So it was with me and Rick as we looked into each other’s eyes in stalemate that dark afternoon. And I was the prey who entered into a special, familiar, and just relationship with its killer. I loved him and hated him as surely as I loved and hated myself.

      But, I had too much to live for and I had to go on living. I couldn’t let him! When he let go of me to unbuckle his belt, I pulled at his hands hysterically, not letting him. He laughed and laughed. He never once hit me. I didn’t even know till years later that women were hit, or worse, during a rape. Then, he grabbed my pants legs around my thighs and yanked hard; traitors, they slid down to my knees.

      “Wow! Look at this!” Rick said about my underwear, tiny bikini panties with little pink rosebuds.

      “Hey, Likus, isn’t that your grandmother coming?” Frankie drawled stupidly from the window.

      “Shit!” Rick spat.

      Rick picked me up by the shoulders and threw me off the couch toward the direction of the kitchen. I landed awkwardly in my bunched up pants, but before I could fall over, he had picked me up again and pushed me further toward the kitchen and again, I was being flung out the back door where I landed on my shoulder in a heap by the garbage pail, fish and banana peels cooking in the hot sun, buzzing with flies at the foot of his back steps. I could hear him answer his grandmother while his face was still toward me. He latched the backdoor shut.

      I struggled to come to my senses. I couldn’t be seen like this and in Rick’s backyard! I didn’t know whether to run first or pull up my pants. I pulled up my pants and zipped the fly.

      I knew I couldn’t simply walk out the driveway to the front.

      Shaking with terror that I might be seen in Rick’s yard, possibly I already had and with my pants down, I hid myself in the thick tangle of brush that grew against the tall wooden fence that separated the Likus’s yard from the Strummer’s. I considered the track side, but the fence there was even taller and since, I had to throw myself over, I didn’t know what kind of shopping cart or soaked mattress or broken bottle I’d land on down by the tracks. The Strummer’s yard beckoned me with the soft, green memories of its apple tree.

      Thorns of scrub rose sliced at my arms and ankles as I tried to gain a foothold on the smooth fence. By sheer will and emergency, I smashed myself into the boards and catapulted my aching body over. I tumbled on to the grass.

      I let myself stop for a minute. I panted heavily, hoping for that moment when my breath would come easily. I wanted to cry. I think the tears started to come and I wiped them away and they continued and I wiped them away again, streaking my face with dirt and blood from my hands.

      Johnny came out of his house and rushed toward me. I was so glad to see him! He was married and didn’t live there any more, but he was home on leave from the Army before going to Vietnam, I remembered all this at once, in my daze. But, there was something wrong about him! His hair was gone! His beautiful, sun-filled hair! And his expression was wrong! He wasn’t happy to see me! He looked furious!

      “Get the hell out of my yard!” he yelled at me.

      His handsome face was twisted. His sunny hair had been shaved along the bumpy round of his skull like a prisoner of war.

      “I couldn’t help it,” I mumbled, stunned and unsure what was happening.

      “Get up!”

      He also pulled me by the neck, like a small animal, and threw me in the direction he wanted me to go, toward the front walk. I thought, “If Rick’s watching, he’ll laugh.”

      “What are you doing, Johnny?” A soft voice called him sweetly from the front door. “Who is that?”

      I looked up through my tears to see the vague shape of a woman wavering there behind the blackened screen door. It was Johnny’s mother.

      “Why it’s Gloria! Gloria Wisher! Hello, dear! How is your mother? I never see her anymore!”

      “Fine,” I sniffed.

      I figured she must be drunk. She didn’t have the slightest idea what was going on. She had never called my mother or spoken much to her unless she happened to be out on the porch when Ma walked by. But, Celia Strummer never came out of the house these days. I didn’t even think she was a nurse anymore. I was surprised, somewhere on top of my misery, that she even knew my name.

      The metal gate made a high-pitched squeal like a caught pig as I opened it and Johnny Strummer, my beloved sun-kissed sweetheart, kicked me real hard in the behind and sent me flying forward out the gate so fast I fell hard on the cement scraping my palms, tearing my pants open and raking my knees in long, bloody scratches.

      His mother was shocked.

      “Johnny!”

      “And stay out!” he screamed, crazily. “Get back in the house!” He turned and strode up the porch steps toward his mother.

      I could hear her voice, retreating, protesting sweetly, that she “didn’t see why -”

      I went home, to my room, to mourn and lick my wounds and gather my strength. Maybe Johnny was mad at me because I hadn’t gone for a ride with him. Maybe he was mad because he’d had to get married or because he had to go to war. But, really, it didn’t matter why. It was an odd circumstance of my life that so many people had behaved so strangely for so long that when, suddenly, someone I’d trusted and believed in, like Johnny or my pediatrician or Daddy, for no reason viciously struck out at me, when it had happened for the thousandth time, I simply went home, washed and salved my wounds, and prepared myself for the next onslaught. Rick had caught me off guard, but I never thought for a moment he’d acted out of character. Somehow, in Revere, that was a virtue. It created a warped kind of trust.

©Patricia Goodwin, 2015

Patricia Goodwin is the author of When Two Women Die, about Marblehead legends and true crime and its sequel, Dreamwater, about the Salem witch trials and the vicious 11-year-old pirate Ned Low. Holy Days is her third novel, about the sexual, psychological seduction of Gloria Wisher and her subsequent transformation. Her newest poetry books are Telling Time By Apples, And Other Poems About Life On The Remnants of Olde Humphrey Farme, illustrated by the author, and Java Love: Poems of a Coffeehouse.

Raped By Her Dream

The Rape

Edgar Degas (1869)

In the Oscar nominated documentary, The Invisible War, by Filmmaker Kirby Dick, Kori Cioca (U.S. Coast Guard), Jessica Hinves (U.S. Air Force), Robin Lynne LaFayette (U.S. Air Force), Lt. Ariana Klay (U.S. Marine Corps, Marine Barracks Washington), Trina McDonald, (U.S. Navy) Lt. Elle Helmer (U.S. Marines Corp, Marine Barracks Washington), Hannah Sewell (U.S. Navy) talk about their dream to join the United States military for many different reasons: wanting to be the best they could be, wanting to be a part of something bigger, wanting to see the world, or wanting to continue a long family tradition of military, which for one woman, Lt. Elle Helmer, went all the way back to the Revolutionary War. All of the women expressed noble reasons for serving their country.

Kori Cioca said she would have repeated basic training over and over because she just loved it. Each woman echoed how much the experience of training meant to them: comaradie is mentioned, challenge, discipline, professionalism, doing the job well, kudos from officers, awards, leaderships positions, achieving great physical and mental prowess, keeping up with the guys and working just as hard as they did, all these accomplishments were exciting to the female recruits who looked forward to their service with eagerness.

And then – reality. 

Stationed in Alaska with ten men, Trina McDonald was the only woman. Trina was raped repeatedly. She said she felt “like a piece of meat on a slab.” Kori Cioca was raped by her so-called “superior.” Her jaw was so damaged in the attack that now she cannot open her mouth to chew. She must eat only soft foods. She cannot go outside in winter without her jaw seizing up in the cold. The other women have similar stories. Hannah Sewell was a virgin before her attack. Her back was injured during the rape and now she has trouble walking. Walking. Lee Le Teff (U.S. Army) had a loaded gun put to her head. One woman (U.S. Army Medical Corps) contracted two STD’s and became pregnant from her rape. Two were accused of adultery, though neither woman was married – their rapists were. (This struck me as very Victorian, reminding me of another film, The Crimson Petal and The White, in which a governess is given her marching papers for getting pregnant with her employer’s child.) In The Invisible War, only one man spoke of being raped, but more men are raped in the military than women.

According to the film, the estimated number of women who have been sexually assaulted in the military is 500,000.

Soldiers might expect to be raped by the enemy if captured during combat, but they do NOT expect to be raped by their fellow soldiers, by their friends, by their commanders - or by their dream.

Harsh reality –

The estimated number is 500,000 - 80% do not report because of the extreme retaliation that comes with reporting.

Rapists are being protected, not victims. A Steubenville Rape Culture prevails. Across every branch of the military, victims are told to be quiet by military officials whom they approach to help them prosecute the crimes against them. Commanders are reluctant to report a rape in their section because they will be seen as unable to command, and they will be reprimanded and fail to advance in their careers. Some of the rapists mentioned in the film were decorated and promoted – let’s be clear, not for rape, but for other wonderful, macho achievements, I’m sure. Rape victims who wanted to report, meanwhile, were told that if they wished to file a report, they could lose their rank.  According to the film, “In units where sexual harassment is tolerated, incidents of rape TRIPLE.”

In the film, Atty. Susan Burke said. “What we hear again and again from soldiers who have been raped is that as bad as it was being raped, what was as bad, if not worse, was to receive professional retaliation in their chosen career, merely because they were raped.”

In other words, raped by their dream.

Brigadier General Loree Sutton went on to say, “Losing even one soldier needlessly because of military sexual trauma is one too many.” All of the women in the film said they would never allow their daughters to join the military, and if that is the goal of the military to get rid of women then why are the rapists also raping men?

Who do you want in your military? Rapists? Or good soldiers? Aren’t we losing good soldiers when men and women must leave the service because of injuries incurred during rape? What happened to nobility? True nobility. Nobility of heart, mind and body.

Apparently, rapists are also JOINING the armed forces. Again, according to The Invisible War, a recent Navy study found that 15% of incoming recruits attempted or committed rape before entering the military, twice the percentage of the equivalent civilian population. Psychiatrist Brigadier General Loree Sutton (Ret. U.S. Army) said in the film, “Particularly for a savvy perpetrator, to work within a relatively closed system like the military, it becomes a prime target-rich environment for a predator.” These rapists, when they leave the military, go on to commit rape in our communities, because rape is a crime that is repeated until the rapist is caught.

Who do you want in your military? Are criminal rapists good soldiers?

According to The Invisible War, in 2011, the court ruled rape to be an occupational hazard of military service. How about getting rapists OUT OF THE MILITARY?

Does the U.S. military considered rape victims to be weak? If rape victims are supposed to suck it up, then why don’t male soldiers just suck up their erections in the first place? If they have so little control, how can they call themselves soldiers? If all that aggression is supposed to be perpetrated on the enemy, then, why are they raping fellow soldiers? (Not that I agree with raping the enemy. I don’t. I think it’s beneath us. Again, nobility.) Hence, the title of the film, The Invisible War: we are at war with ourselves. Conduct unbecoming.

What does a soldier do if the military is his dream and he is raped by his dream?  What does a soldier do when the country he believes in rapes him? The men and women who told their stories in The Invisible War, now must pick up the pieces of their lives and re-invent themselves. Men and women who were devoted to serving their country in the armed services, now must find another way to serve their country and the American ideals they still have. Many have, but many are still so damaged physically and mentally that they are forced to relive the nightmare before they can heal and go forward with their lives.

Cut to civilian life -

In a 2004 New York Magazine story, Naomi Wolf describes having been sexually propositioned by her Yale thesis professor, Harold Bloom in 1983. Apparently, Bloom put his hand on her thigh and told her that she was lovely. After Naomi threw up (Have you seen Harold Bloom?), he changed his tune and told her, according to Wolf, that she was a “deeply troubled girl.” Naomi was advised to get her degree and wait to expose him. She did. If she hadn’t waited, perhaps she would have lost all that she had achieved in her field, and been raped by her dream as well. Naomi said she finally had to come forward because male entitlement at Yale still predominated the campus among professors, who considered approaching female students to be a “perk” and among the male students themselves, as in the “No Means Yes, Yes Means Anal” chant of a certain Yale fraternity. Of course, an advance is not a rape, but it is if your dream is held hostage.

            Oh, I know I’m being naïve. I know, for instance, that Marilyn Monroe was “passed around” and that “she understood this.” I know that the Catholic Church knew forever about the child rapes and took them as a matter of course. Of course. In the grand Roman tradition – Caligula’s uncle, who raised him, used to throw little slave boys over the cliff when he was done with them. I’m sure none of those slaves ever dreamt of being sex slaves, but what about all the altar boys who once believed in something? All the Catholic children – and their parents - who once believed their priest was the representative of God on earth?

            Recently, The Daily Beast reported a story on scandal at the Bolshoi Ballet. Ballerinas were being coerced into having sex with some of the wealthy and powerful men of Moscow and Paris. The Bolshoi story reminded me of Degas’ ballet dancers. When Degas painted the hall of the new Paris Opera House, he was painting a beautiful baroque hallway of chandeliers and sparkling gold scrollwork peopled by men in evening dress and female ballet dancers (nicknamed “petit rats”), a hall created for this sole purpose – for wealthy men to view the ballerinas and choose from them.

L'Etoile

Edgar Degas (1878)

            I guess I’m naïve. I’m told that theaters will always depend on wealthy patrons and that the rich will always be able to buy almost anything they want. The petit rats in Degas’ time came from poor families who could not protect them. The ballerinas of the Bolshoi who are coerced are usually chosen from the lower ranks because they are the most vulnerable to losing their positions. Will being able to dance superbly the life-demanding discipline of ballet ever be enough? Ballerinas of the BOLSHOI raped by their dream? Am I really being naïve? I guess so. I’m told that rich “patrons” mean as much to the ballerinas, who cannot dance forever, as they do to the theater. In fact, securing a rich patron can ensure a ballerina’s success. I’m told the ballerinas brag about their expensive gifts. Sounds like Stockholm Sydrome. When will dancing superbly be enough?
            May 31, 2015 UPDATE: Something I, as a victim, have always wondered about, now answered by Director Amy Berg's film, "An Open Secret" - Hollywood's secret sexual abuse of child stars.

            Recently, I saw the film Young Abe Lincoln, which portrayed Lincoln's early years as a lawyer, and yes, it was fictionalized. Sure, it was melodramatic and sentimental. I wasn’t in the mood for a black and white oldie, but I found myself drawn in by the characters, the nobility of them. Maybe I’m naïve. I’ve always been drawn to Lincoln’s self-education, which I believe in and I have done. I’m drawn to the simplicity of his life. How he was really very shy and quiet, but was encouraged all the time by the needs of the community to get up and speak, to take a leadership role. I found myself laughing outrageously in some places, and sobbing in others. Particularly at the very end, when young Abe, reluctant once again to take the mic, walked up to the podium and morphed into the statue of himself in Washington. He’s still there.

What would you do in his presence? Would you rape your fellow soldier? I’m pretty sure Lincoln could have watched and appreciated a ballet without trying to get a little from the exquisite ballerinas. I'm sure he could have enjoyed a TV show without fantasizing about the child star. Maybe I’m just naïve.

©Patricia Goodwin 2013
Patricia Goodwin is the author of When Two Women Die, about Marblehead legends and true crime and its sequel, Dreamwater, about the Salem witch trials and the vicious 11-year-old pirate Ned Low. Holy Days is her third novel, about the sexual, psychological seduction of Gloria Wisher and her subsequent transformation. Her newest poetry books are Telling Time By Apples, And Other Poems About Life On The Remnants of Olde Humphrey Farme, illustrated by the author, and Java Love: Poems of a Coffeehouse.